Saturday, November 6, 2010

Lesson One

I have found myself thinking about the next Skulduggery book a LOT lately, thinking about which of the story strands are going to intertwine and pay off, and which of the strands are going to continue into the next three books. Last week I wrote a five page scene where Valkyrie, consumed by rage, breaks into a police station and beats the hell out of a prisoner. Obviously, I’m not going to tell you what DRIVES her to do something this extreme, but the fact is I wrote it, and that can only mean one thing:

I am now writing Skulduggery Pleasant Book Six.

I don’t really have much choice in these matters. I just seem to start without realising it, and eventually I stop and look around and go “Oooooh, I’m writing a book, so THAT’S what I’ve been doing for the past few days...”

It’s not like the timing is convenient for me, either. I have a couple of short stories to write for various things, I have to rewrite a horror-comedy script I wrote last year, and it looks like I’ll be working on at least one brand new script over the next few months (none of this Skulduggery related). And now, aside from all that, I’m apparently writing the next book, too.

I’m going to do my best to document the stages of writing as I reach them, in order to explain how I write. I know there is a bizarrely large proportion of you, my Minions, who are also writers, and I keep getting asked to give out tips, so hopefully, in the writing of this book, I’ll be able to respond to those requests.

This doesn’t mean, by the way, that this accursed Blog is going to turn into a writing class. The fact is, most of my time will be spent sitting at this desk, tapping at this keyboard, writing words just like these, and that’s not exactly going to be exciting reading. So the Blog will continue as normal, but a certain section will be taken up trying to explain what I do, and how I do it. And along the way, I might even leak some little tidbits about what what you can expect to happen to poor old Skulduggery and Val...

So, what is the first thing I do when I start a book?

A lot of this work has been done years ago, when I planned out the series. I knew that certain things have to happen in certain books, and I wrote it all down and I keep going back to it, taking bits out or adding bits in. It changes as I go, of course it does, but fundamentally it remains the same.

So, for Book Six, I have certain things that have to happen. Let us take, as an example, the first segment of my plan for Playing With Fire, which I think all of you have read. Very simply, I would have opened up a Word document and written:

Val more powerful.

Guild new Grand Mage. Doesn’t like Skul or Val.

Vengeous escapes. Meets Dusk.

Plans for Val’s family reunion.

China tells Skul/Val about the Grotesquery.

Val meets Echo-Gordon- tells her about the Torment.

Vengeous searching for Vile’s armour.

And that’s how I go on, literally keeping it that simple. Very short sentences that I just need to glance over. I don’t show this to anyone, by the way. I don’t show it to my agent or my editor- not even to Laura- because this is the roughest of rough outlines. Each one of those lines can be changed around. Maybe we know about the Grotesquery from the very start of the book. How will that affect everything else? There’ll certainly be more momentum, because once our heroes know what the threat is, it’ll be full steam ahead. But maybe I don’t want that. Maybe I want a few fun, bizarre chapters to start off with, and then BOOM- they’re told what’s at stake once all the subplots (the family reunion, China’s revelation that she used to worship the Faceless Ones) are established, and THEN they take off.

Occasionally I’ll already have some chapters written- like the Valkyrie breaking into the police station scene- so I don’t mind flitting from the start of the book to the middle to the end, and back again. I’ll link it all up later. Right now, I just want to start the book having fun.

The outline will grow as I go. The deeper I get into it, the more notes I’ll be making, and so eventually my nice and simple approach won’t work anymore. For every point, there’ll be a few lines, explaining why and what and how. But for now, at this early stage, I can get away with broad outlines, because not everything has been decided yet.

This is really useful for building enthusiasm for the book you’re about to write. You’ve put down enough notes to form a bare story, and you can suddenly see how these elements can be chopped and changed to make something better.

My advice is, don’t spend a lot of time on this. Keep it short. Keep it simple. Don’t waste all your enthusiasm and all your excitement on this part- keep all that for the actual writing. Which is what I’m going to do right...

*gets out party poppers* WOOOOT! BOOK SIX IS NOW IN PROGRESS >:D *cackles insanely* I think the idea of the police station is very very epic, as usual :D And thank you so much for writing tips and such because my book (Inspector Doutchman, which has been in progress since I was...ten.) needs to be finished by the end of this month *facepalm* because of this NaNoWrimo thing...Or something. ANYWHO. I have a question. Ages ago on Bebo you said you would try and "Fit some normallity" into book 6, because I asked would there ever be a time where Valkyrie and Skulduggery and such do something NORMAL, so to speak (well, as normal as those two can be). So, my question is, WILL there be Valleh Walleh and Skulleh Wulleh normality? :D *puppy eyes*LOVEYOUMUCHLYFlaring Rhythm-nessxx

Detective Jones pulled up in his unmarked Audi A3 and strolled over to Liverpool Road Bank, his black trench coat blowing out behind him in the gale force wind. “Give me a status report, now!’ he barked.“Y-yes sir,” stammered a young officer, “twelve million pounds stolen, no sign of a forced entry, all of the clerks and guards are dead, no signs of resistance and no blood.” “Are the any bullet or knife wounds on the victims?” asked Jones.“No sir, that’s the strange thing, all of the bodies are completely unmarked there aren’t even any signs of them being strangled or assaulted bare-fistedly.” concluded the officer.“Yes, that is strange. I’ll go and take a look,” said Jones as he walked into the bank. While he looked around he checked for any corpses. He saw two clerks slumped in their chairs; it looked like they’d died so suddenly that they’d not even tried to run or at least get up. Continuing through the bank Jones walked down a darkened corridor he saw two guards dead in the guard post, still holding cigarettes in their cold hands. Looking further down the corridor he saw six guards lying face down on the floor. Turning a corner he saw another three clerks cold, dead and staring slumped against walls and lying on the floor. As Detective Jones neared the main vault he checked for any spilled notes but there were none. Taking out the vault key the detective unlocked the heavy steel door and slowly pushed it open. Stepping inside the vault Jones took in his surroundings, the vault was about ten by ten meters and completely empty. There wasn’t a single note left and all of the solid gold bars and trinkets were gone. This was highly un-unusual because burglars usually left some money behind accidentally. Suddenly he heard the door click, Jones swung around to see a man clad in black standing with his with his hand clenched. The last thing Detective David Jones saw as he fell was the man, bending down and taking his police pass. The detective was found two hours later stone dead, his body untouched.

im ment to be organised and im ment to posta new fanfic today but its quite hard while talking to you doing maths and talking through the phone while listening to music aswell.....wow i can really multitask....

yay! thanks derek that was actually really helpful :Dive started a few stories or tried to plan them out and non of them ever really got finished. so actually planning them out that way might really help.

yes i did have dreams....i was chained to metal room and then some guy who i swear i saw before comes in and he tortues me until i say something about a book....then it freezes and the words "To be continued" appear.....its weird....

AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! BOOK SIX! AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! oh my god oh my god oh my god! i feel like Val when Ghastly was showing off his facade!She beats up a prisoner!? cool. so many things to fix Derek!: Tanith, Cealan(i am on team Fletcher!), Necromancers... China! wat is her deal!?

Hey people of the universe,I am officially pissed off because when I came in from training my brother was in the shower and used all the hot water so I had just put in shampoo and the water went freezing so I have to wait with soapy hair for the water to heat up. EVIL BROTHER!

my bro is so annoying 2 but in the end i love him. kinda like Tanith in that way. ohh yeah. Derek, when are u gonna make Tanith and Ghastly's wedding?( i am just saying wat yall r thinking) Tanith's bro should b the priest.

im not swearing sarthacus, *although im pretty damn close thanks to geography*THANKS TO WHOEVER INVENTED THE SUBJECT OF GEOGRAPHY. THANKS SOOOOOO MUCH.the sarcasm is practically leacking out of that remark.

*waves like a mad person!*I'm back!!!! I'm sorry I was gone so long!!!!That's awesome, Derek!!*jumps up and down in excitement*Homework sucks so bad. That's mostly why I haven't been on in ages, I don't like third year, it's hard!! *cries*Well, I won't need maths what I'm doing. Acting!!!Stay weird!Harly Ryker.

aww being a drummer would be amazing darkane! ....sadly i cant play anything. also i prefer writing.i also despise homework harly, year 9 is soooo hard. anyone else in year 9? i think third year is year 9...

im so jelous flo. so jelous. im in all set ones but ive never gotten a 7a in anything.thats it, im finishing this geography so i can do my science all this week. im getting a 7a in science. most deffinatly.peace out guys, im on a mission.

I'm supprised about getting so many 7a's... I don't really listen... my friends call me a Rebel... I suppose I am but in music yesterday we were messing about all lesson and when it came to play what we had done we were like, Oh... the teacher said ours were good but needed to work on timing...

Kallista seems to annoy be... mainly because of teasing but some because I said I don't like Mamma Mia last night... I haven't seen it, my auntie jayne has the songs on cd... and she said '*sings Mamma Mia in Dragona's ear as loud as possible and needs a step ladder to do so*' that just makes me feel too tall...

wow really? lv 6 is a c at gcse...actally if i carry on as i am i might get an a in sceince,english and maths after all :Dwait, must stay focused, on a mission, ok im banning myself from this blog until my geog is done, and from youtube,and from the sherlock site, and from games....and fun until my geog is done.

we had music on wednesday and we were listening to the starwars theme tune on the keyboard all lesson. My friends made me play a tune i never heard of and i got a 7c for it....apparantly i had to be more confident...

well im cut and bruised from yesterdays sword figthing lesson. My teacher decided to put me against a "Higher" student who i would have killed if he said that i wasnt wearing proper clothes for fighting again. i won 4 times out of 5 and i put my teacher and his stupid student to shame...